Tung Wah Smallpox Hospital Memorial Arch - 東華痘局紀念公園

If we take a closer look into Hong Kong history, there were more dangerous diseases that have been invading the city over centuries. The story of the Tung Wah Smallpox Hospital in Kennedy Town, which is also our third stop today, is exactly the one that shows how resilient Hong Kong is to withstand a much fiercer epidemic compared to the Coronavirus now -that is, the smallpox epidemic in the 1930s. This hospital was originally built in 1892 as a government-managed epidemic prevention clinic, but due to the increase in smallpox cases in 1907, the government decided to hand it over to Tung Wah Hospital as a Smallpox Prevention and Control Bureau which mainly uses Chinese Medicine to treat patients and vaccination. The smallpox incident reached its peak in 1938 where an average of 40 cases was recorded daily and the only measure to prevent the pandemic was to shut down the connection between Hong Kong and the important surrounding ports. The hospital was eventually demolished after the Second World War and the Memorial Arch here in this photo below becomes a visible reminder of the history of epidemics in Hong Kong.